January & cluttered expectations.
January. The month for resolutions and new beginnings.
It came and went too quickly for me, leaving all of my best intentions waiting on the subway platform while the bullet train that is life just kept speeding right along.
Starting a new job this month, feeling stretched and challenged to be “enough” for the people around me, grappling with dreary Michigan skies and a cold that sliced to my very bones—it all derailed the grand creative visions I had crafted for myself this year.
Our COVID-puppy, Franklin, caught the brunt of my “not enough”ness these last few weeks. Raised in pandemic captivity, this 14-pound, 13-month old cockapoo has only known a world where he sleeps nestled on my lap every single day while I zoom, write, and project manage all from the comfort of my writer’s desk: cute sweater and necklace up top, pajama pants and fuzzy socks down below. For Franklin, life has been very routine: The Girl home with him all day until The Boy arrives promptly at 6:15 and we enjoy dinner, a final round of fetch, and then TV time. He loves that rhythm, and when it is violated, he tends to bark or nudge my husband and me to restore the proper balance.
With the new job and a now hybrid work schedule, my world has shifted, which means Franklin’s has too. He doesn’t know the schedule anymore—why some days involve an early morning kennel and others don’t—and his confusion has started manifesting in some new behaviors, my favorite being the bathroom strike. At 8am, garbed in a puppy fleece jacket to combat the 17 degree weather, Franklin is trotted downstairs by Yours Truly to relieve himself. After bathroom time, we climb the stairs to our apartment, I give him breakfast, pour my coffee, and then ready myself for the day before heading off to work promptly at 8:40, leaving my husband to tuck him in his kennel moments later.
But lately, he’s been protesting the changes by sitting himself down in the snow during bathroom time, staring at me, and shivering until I yield and return indoors. Maybe he thinks that if he doesn’t pee, I can’t leave for work. Maybe it’s just to cold to risk the liquid from his body freezing to him as he releases.
Either way, he’s started refusing to pee in the morning, complicating the entire order for the day, and perpetuating the feeling that I can’t just make everything “work” right now. My husband and I both find ourselves flexing for this little pup, trying to help him adjust.
In the process, Franklin has become my daily reminder to flex more of my expectations. Because the manic high of “getting shit done” is not the healthiest way to feel accomplished. And creating at a slower, honest pace is it’s own kind of bravery.
January 31st is inviting me to slow down and not get everything done. It’s begging me to make some room for those I love to not be efficient. It’s reminding me that I need concrete support and grace from others, and if I do not ask for it, I will run myself into the ground.
One of my goals for 2022 was to launch my podcast: Love, A Writer. Originally, I had grand plans of launching the podcast the first week of January. Instead, I will be launching it last night, the very last night of January. My desire is to publish a fresh episode of the season each week, but per the revelations from above, we might just have to flex with that.
Regardless, I hope you take a listen. And I hope this first episode helps create some room for you to identify the voices that challenge your creativity and make you feel “less than.” I hope listening gives you some helpful ways to engage those voices and then keep creating anyway.
Because this episode I shared, it’s for all of us: the creatives who have already fallen off our wagons and are finding our way back up again to keep making beautiful things.
